Lived Experiences Interview with Patricia from Our Fearless Adventure

This interview includes:

Creating a travel orientated lifestyle

Long stay travel

Overcoming peer and family negativity

Career reinvention

Have you ever considered reinventing your lifestyle?

Have you dreamed of cutting back your work hours to enjoy a higher quality of life?

Do you want to travel for more than the standard two weeks a year?

Patricia and her partner Simon from Our Fearless Adventure are doing just that. As their relationship evolved their dream of co-creating a travel lifestyle together flourished. Based in Canada, they design their trips around long term stays for a deeper immersion into local culture and for the love of settling and having a mini-life together in different parts of the world.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? But it takes courage to break away from the ‘normal way’ of doing things – the 9-5, the 5 day working week and the 2 week holiday per year. In this interview, Patricia discusses why friends, family and colleagues may not always cheerlead your decisions and in fact might be unduly negative. She discusses the personal challenges this presents and how she overcame them.

With a PhD in Organisational Psychology, Patricia specialises in Career Reinvention, coaching clients to connect with their core values in order to take bold action to live the life they desire.

Why did I want to interview Patricia?

I’m passionate about inspiring people to live a life rich in personal freedom. I have long felt that societal values place too much emphasis on striving to accumulate in pursuit of happiness. We fill our homes with things, we spend money on the latest fashions, we redecorate when grey becomes the new symbol of contemporary middle class living and go into debt for a new car. Temporary happiness ensues but fades rapidly as the shiny new objects become merely just more objects.

We live in a society rife with depression and anxiety, and I’m of the opinion that rampant consumerism is certainly not a way out of this. I believe that when we make personal decisions that are in line with our core values, our real core values, not the ones that advertisers lead us to believe, we put ourselves on a path to greater happiness and fulfilment.

Only you know what your core values are, but if for example they revolve around wanting a life abundant in meaningful experiences, wanting to discover this beautiful world we live in, wanting to do a job that you enjoy…all of those things are in reach. We live in this amazing age, where we have more flexibility and fluidity than ever before. There really is no excuse – you can reinvent yourself, if you so choose to. Yes, it’s scary and yes it takes courage and hard work, but it’s all there in reach.

An Interview with Patricia from Our Fearless Adventure

Patricia & Simon of Our Fearless Adventure

You and your partner are embarking on a more travel orientated lifestyle. Why is that? And what does this lifestyle entail for you?

My journey into this lifestyle started in January 2021 when I decided to book a summer trip to Chicoutimi, QC. I fell in love with Chicoutimi when I did a language immersion program there in 2010 and had always wanted to return and spend a summer there. The pandemic gifted me the opportunity to do that. I had planned to take the trip alone but was optimistic about what life would bring me and who might join me on my adventure once summer came.

When Simon and I met in April 2021, we first bonded over having both studied and lived in Chicoutimi. It was fitting and poetic that he would be the one to join me on this little adventure, two months after we first met.

Simon was incredibly grateful that I included him in my travels. He had travelled throughout his 20s and lived an unconventional lifestyle. He took seasonal jobs, such as spending summers picking berries in Okanagan Valley and working at hotel for six months in Corsica. He also spent six months travelling with his brother in Southeast Asia and four months travelling in Eastern Europe one winter with a friend he met along the way.

Our decision to co-create a travel lifestyle happened gradually. When we first started dating, we both assumed that, if things worked out, he would continue to travel while I continued to live my life in Toronto. I was very independent and enjoyed spending time alone so it was a non-issue. When we started travelling in Canada that summer, we had such a blissful, fun experience and were so compatible that our life naturally unfolded from there. We connect on the same core values and travel is just a means of bringing those values into our day-to-day life. I also feel that, because of travel, we are continually collaborating to shape our life, which is beautiful to see.

Simon dreamed bigger than I ever thought possible for me. His lifestyle and philosophy opened my mind, challenged my assumptions, and shifted my perspective. I love the life we are building together, how we’ve grown as a couple, and what we’ve experienced throughout our journey.

One life choice that our travel lifestyle entails is working fewer hours. Simon role modelled this for me and my decision to move to a 4-day work week was a game changer for my quality of life and well-being.

When we travel, we design our trips around long-term stays. Specifically, we spend around two months in one country and we spend one of these months in one place. Adopting Porto’s Bonfim neighbourhood; settling alongside the Ionian coast in Puglia, Italy; and living in a mid-rise apartment building in Panama City. These are just a few of the places we settled down in and called home during our travels.

Long-term stays ground us and enable us to immerse ourselves more so in the local culture, discover the people and food, and develop our own routines. One of my favourite things about travel is creating a mini-life together and knowing that I have so many places in my heart I can call home.

Can you tell me about some recent trips you’ve been on? Did you learn anything about yourself or your relationship on those trips?

Our first trip abroad was to Panama. Neither of us knew anything about Panama prior to travelling there nor did we know anyone who had been. Boquete, Panama holds a special place in my heart – a serene yet vibrant town in a sunken valley, tucked in between sleeping giants: the Caldera Mountains and the Volcán Barú – the highest point in Panama.

Almost every morning, I would walk to the Panamonte Bridge, which overlooks the Caldera River. Ethereal in nature, the river paradoxically instilled in me a deep sense of spiritual peace while igniting my inner flame. Afterward, I would visit the Panamonte Inn for a morning coffee. Finding a place of quiet enjoyment and peace, I savoured my coffee amidst tropical gardens and blue skies.

Last summer, I started a travel blog as I way to connect with and capture our experiences of travel while inspiring others to dream. I use an expressive writing style that creates an immersive experience for my readers. My hope is for them to feel as if they are in another world – I want them to live the experience. So far, I’ve captured the experience of being in Panama City, Panama; Boquete, Panama; the Azores, Portugal; and Sooke, BC, Canada.

The first year of mine and Simon’s relationship was spent travelling. When we met in Toronto, Simon had just arrived and had only planned to stay at a nearby Airbnb for one month. Technically, we didn’t officially “move in together” until a year after we started dating as we were always travelling. We learned a lot about our relationship; however, this was not related to travel. We experienced many of the growing pains that couples experience once the honeymoon phase fades. I was actually more concerned about moving in together in Toronto as I thought that staying in one place for many months would challenge and test our relationship.

I do believe that travel strengthened our relationship and forced us to be intentional and effortful in creating a healthy, collaborative and supportive dynamic. Without that dynamic, I do not believe that travel would be possible for us. We have both grown a lot as individuals and as a couple and have been more and more intentional in understanding each other so that we can create a safe, loving environment for the other.

As an individual and as couple, I think the biggest learning was understanding what we need to create safety. Moving from place to place and immersing myself in different cultures while being away from family and friends can definitely challenge my sense of safety. I’ve learned a lot about what I need to feel safe and how I need to shape travel to support that. This is so important and often overlooked that I’ve written a blog article on how to reduce anxiety and create safety while travelling long-term. The strategies and insights I share are a product of my lived experience, but also draw on my expertise and doctoral training in psychology and coaching.

I found it fascinating to read that when you first decided to go on a long trip abroad it was met with disapproval from your peers. Why do you think this is? How did it make you feel? And how did you overcome this negative reaction?

Founder of ‘Fireside Chats to ignite your inner nomad‘

Simon and I co-created our travel lifestyle during the pandemic. Looking back, I think these reactions reflected people’s distrust with change during a time when we experienced a lot of change in how we work and uncertainty about the future of work. People were holding on tightly to what they considered right for them and were more sceptical of anything that might threaten that.

Some of my immediate reactions from people in my professional network were “that’s unacceptable”, “that’s ridiculous”, and “I’m afraid for you.” Sometimes I was simply met with astonishment and no comment. I even felt a couple of people I was close to pull away from me. At the same time, I had people react with confusion and silence and then two months later reach out to tell me that they were inspired by me and that my lifestyle provoked them to rethink their life choices.

I think a lot of these first reactions resulted from not understanding this lifestyle and seeing it as incompatible with their schema of a professional. I think it may have reflected their fear and insecurity about the future of work as a result of the pandemic and defied their expectations of what a competent professional should look like. In truth, my organization and direct managers supported me; I was more engaged in my work and made an even stronger client impact – all while travelling and taking on a broader scope of responsibility. Fortunately, more and more organizations see the value in supporting the lifestyle of their employees in order for them to bring out their best selves.

The other part was not necessarily being met with the intensity of enthusiasm and cheerleading I needed from some friends. Again, looking back, I think this was, in part, a product of isolation from the pandemic and everyone tackling profound personal challenges. It was also a reflection of my own mental and emotional state – after being isolated and living alone for a year during the pandemic, I needed more cheerleading and approval from those closest to me. I also learned that I didn’t express well my motivation for travel and why it was such a big deal, which made it difficult for others to rally around me. Since the world has returned to “normal” and since I’ve been sharing my experiences more openly, I’ve engaged with friends meaningfully about our travels and have seen a lot of curiosity, enthusiasm, and cheerleading. I’ve also started to connect with a lot of incredible people who champion a travel lifestyle.

In truth, it took me a long time to overcome the negative or muted reactions. Mostly because I was still in a professional context where a travel or nomadic lifestyle was not celebrated, and I was physically and emotionally separated from my support system of friends and family. The three things that helped me to shake off this judgment were:

(1) speaking my truth and openly talking about our lifestyle with others. My Instagram and Blog have been a great platform for this.

(2) finding ways to share and include our loved ones in our travels.

(3) building community with like-minded others. Simon and I are building a community of travellers, digital nomads, and aspiring digital nomads in Toronto by hosting events at down-to-earth venues once a month in Toronto. I’ll also launch what I’m calling “Fireside Chats to Ignite Your Inner Nomad” – a conversational interview that follows the personal journey of inspiring people who bring value to the nomadic community. It’s an opportunity for those who embrace this lifestyle to share their stories. I want us to dream together and benefit from the wisdom of others.

As a personal shoutout, I did have one close friend who was incredibly supportive and happy for me from the beginning. She was my cheerleader. Not because she shares a love for travel but because she knew my struggles during the pandemic and prior to that and was beyond happy I was in a loving relationship living my dream. Years ago, she bought me a make up bag with a quotation that said, “Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively.” She knew what I needed in life and later saw that I found that in Simon, a traveller of 10 years who gave me the safety I needed to live adventurously like him.

You also mention that courage and trust are two emotional states that are needed to cultivate an unconventional lifestyle, which I totally agree with and I’ve needed lots of that myself. Can you explain more of what you mean by this?

Courage and trust are states that we all need to cultivate in ourselves in order to live an intentional, values-based life.

Trust, so that we can get in touch with what’s truly important to us. We need to bring clarity to our purpose, vision, and values so that we can build the life we want. First, we need to connect with our intuition and then we need to listen to it.

Courage naturally follows trust and is equally important. Once we know what we want for ourselves, we need to take bold action to create it. Even if you don’t identify as bold, assertive, or daring, each of us has a courageous part of ourselves. We first need to explore what that looks like for us and then bring it out in the contexts where it would serve us most. With my clients, I encourage them to explore what “being bold” looks like for them in a completely new yet low stakes situation, such as an improv class. Nothing helps you to access your inner courage better than irrefutable lived experience.

You’re a Career Reinvention Coach – can you tell me more about your background and how you came into this career?

I’m quite versatile in the work that I do – career reinvention is simply my “chouchou”: an affectionate term that the French use to refer to someone that they adore above all others. It’s a term reserved for someone truly special who holds a place in your heart.

I have a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and am a trained coach with the Co-Active Training Institute. For 5 years, I have worked as a coach and consultant in Talent Assessment, Leadership Development, and Coaching. My experience is multi-faceted: providing thought leadership to build a coaching philosophy, framework, and methodology; leveraging creativity to design talent development programs; facilitating leadership workshops; and assessing, developing, and coaching individuals and leaders.

I mentioned earlier that we all have a courageous part of ourselves – my courage has always been strongest when serving others. We all have gifts and two of mine are my intuition and empathy. Together, these allow me to truly see my clients and what’s important to them. Truly seeing others coupled with courage are gifts that, when brought into coaching, enable my clients to dream bigger than they ever thought possible for them. My hope is that, through the coaching relationship, they can cultivate trust and courage within themselves so that they can continue to listen to themselves and take bold action to build the life they want even after the coaching relationship has ended.

My role as a coach in Career Reinvention is something that unfolded naturally during the pandemic. I found that a lot of my coaching clients were feeling stuck and dissatisfied in their roles. I often kick-start any coaching engagement with an assessment that gives insights into what they value and what context they need to thrive. For many of my clients, seeing their values laid out in an assessment report was the first time they felt seen and heard in their experience. It gave them permission to rid themselves of the false belief that “there is something wrong with me” for being unhappy in this role. Instead, it reaffirmed how misaligned their current role was to their values and how much of a disservice they were doing to themselves by maintaining the status quo.

Career Reinvention is less about reinventing yourself and more about dreaming big so that you can build a role and career that enables you to bring yourself into the world. It is about listening to yourself and taking bold action to build a career that enables you to bring forth your gifts, connect with your values, and make a meaningful contribution to the world.

Do you have any trips coming up?

We’re always dreaming of adventures together. We’re hoping to take a road trip out west in the coming months. We’re house sitting for a retired couple that is taking a few weeks to cycle in Spain. Honestly, it was so refreshing and energizing to chat with the wife. Simon and I were fascinated by her story and already feel so welcomed by her. This will be a new experience for us – we’re excited to have dinner with her on our first night and be welcomed into her home!